


Savage

by SirKai



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: M/M, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-13
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-09 22:02:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirKai/pseuds/SirKai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amon has revoked the bending of his Lieutenant, and now seeks to find him a suitable weapon for combat through quite a bit of trial and error.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Savage

**Author's Note:**

> Very special thanks to Veitstanz for all of the terrific storybending we've done together!  
> 

“It’s only a hay puppet, Lieutenant.”

It was indeed made of hay. Straw was protruding from holes and tears across the varying sizes of burlap sacks, all strapped to a pole and conjoined into a shape that someone might mistake as vaguely humanoid. Amon wasn’t one for craftsmanship.

“I know,” I answered, glancing to the side at Amon. He was standing with his arms held behind him and his back acutely straight. I re-tightened my fingers around the red hilt of the saber.

“So what are you waiting for? It does not bleed, Lieutenant. There are no nerves. It won’t scream or fight ba-”

I thrusted my arm forward, burying the tip of the sword into the soft torso of the deformed scarecrow. A puff of hay descended to the floor like feathers. My fingers still gripped the sword, and I felt the end of the blade embedded into the wooden post.

“How was that?” I asked.

“Terrible,” Amon said flatly.

My jaw dropped. “I struck it all the way through!”

Amon briskly paced towards me, removing an arm from behind his back. He gently pushed me aside and tore the sword from the scarecrow with a swift yank. He held the end of the blade close to his eyes.

“Have you ever seen someone wield a saber, Lieutenant?” Amon lowered the blade from his face and glared at me.

I didn’t say anything; I was, for some reason, too smug to give him the answer he wanted.

“The blade is not as wide and curved as it is so you can _stab_ with it,” Amon said. “It’s used for cutting. If you want to poke holes in things, I’ll find you a pike or a rapier. But for now, keep in mind what this weapon was designed to do, and attack again.” He flicked the hilt of the sword from his hand, catching the rotating blade from the air with two fingers and offering me the weapon. 

I inhaled a deep breath and grabbed the sword. Amon took a few steps back and returned to his impeccable posture.

Both sets of my fingers were wrapped around the sword’s handle as I reeled it back over my head. I let out a triumphant grunt as I swung the blade at the scarecrow in a wide arc, aiming for its neck (or what was perhaps meant to be the neck). I closed my eyes as the sword hit its target. A vicious ringing vibrated my body, and my shoulders bunched up at the shrieking rasps of steel against cement. I nervously wrenched open an eyelid to find the blade lying on the ground, curiously far away from its hilt. 

I stared into gaping and empty blade socket with a cocked eyebrow, and then looked to Amon with a pleading expression. “I cut with it, like you said.”

Amon rubbed a pair of fingers against the forehead of his mask, and heaved a very disconcerting groan.

\---

Crowds of trees blurred past. We were miles outside of Republic City, with no satomobile in sight from either direction. Amon braced his grip tighter over my torso as the road gradually became more unsteady.

He tapped my chest and pointed to a thin trail branching from the road. I nodded, and veered the motorcycle onto the dirt path. The vehicle’s body shook through the winding trail. 

“Here!” Amon shouted. 

I eased on the motorcycle’s brake and snapped the engine off. Amon lifted himself off the bike and faced the dense forest.

Amon sidled the bag from over his shoulder and dropped it into the brush. He untied the top end of the long bag and withdrew a glistening, polished wooden longbow along with a bundle of arrows. The length of the bow was decorated with an endless spiraling pattern. I gaped at it as he held it up.

“Did you make this?” I asked, running my fingers over the exquisite carvings.

“No,” Amon said. “I stole it. Now watch.”

I reeled my hand back as Amon drew an arrow back against the bow string. The stone arrowhead was barely peeking beyond the front of the bow.

“Do you see that tree?” he asked.

“What tree?”

“The one I’m aiming at.”

“I... think I see it.”

Amon sighed, and shifted his feet. “Stand behind me and follow the arrow.”

I stepped in behind him, my head leaning in over his shoulder.

“Not that close!” Amon shouldered me back and groaned. His mask shot back at me with narrowed eyes. I held my hands up defensively. Amon retrained the longbow and released the arrow. There was a low, momentary whistle as it darted through forest in a barely an eye’s blink, ending with a distant crack.

I peered through the dense trees, trying to follow the arrow’s trajectory.

“Now do you see the tree?” Amon sneered.

I squinted at the still arrow. The pointed head was embedded in the mossy bark in the middle of the trunk, and the tree was at least thirty meters away. 

“Here.” Amon held the bow out. “Now hit that tree.” He stepped back several paces, foliage and twigs crunching under his boots.

My fingers strummed the bowstring and studied the weapon’s weight in my hands. I reached down to pluck a wooden arrow from the sack and pressed the shaft against the arrow sight. The back end of the arrow shook against the padded serving portion of the string. My pinching fingers widened around the arrow as I reigned the string back towards my shoulder, and my breathing picked up through my gritted teeth. “Like this?” I grunted.

Amon paced towards me, his hands hovering around my body like I was a thousand piece puzzle, with every piece being in the wrong spot. Each time his hands reached in to correct something, Amon pulled back with a sigh, seemingly overwhelmed with where to start. “First,” he finally decided. “Straighten your stance. Stand sideways.” He kneeled down to shift my hips and knees, even acutely fixing the placement of my boots. Amon continued to poke, prod, and adjust while muttering condescendingly. 

“Keep your shoulders even.” 

“Don’t spread your fingers so far apart. You’re not kneading dough.”

“The bow demands respect, Lieutenant. Keep your back upright.” 

“Lean in closer. How do you expect to hit your target if you can’t see where the arrow is going?”

I felt like a disobedient piece of ore that he was sculpting into a statue. Eventually (after carefully threading his fingers around my jaw to give me the ‘ideal perspective’), Amon stepped back and admired the finished product. The positioning of my limbs had been refined so rigidly that I barely dared to breathe.

“Now, fire,” Amon ordered.

Absorbing one last determined stare at the marked tree, I drew in a deep breath and released the arrow. The bowstring whipped past my face and launched the arrow forward. There was a moment of stillness and silence, as I waited to hear that triumphant crack of my arrow hitting its target. I heard nothing. I peered through the forest at the tree Amon had shot, and still only one arrow was piercing it.

“Were you aiming for the tree I marked for you, Lieutenant?” he asked.

I exhaled, and glared down at my feet as I answered. “Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

I didn’t respond.

“Try again,” Amon said, motioning to the bag of arrows at his feet.

It didn’t take long for the bag to run dry of arrows, and there was still only one pinned to the tree.

\---

The wooden steps creaked. I glanced at the staircase as Amon descended into the garage.

“Lieutenant,” he called out. 

I swept the cleaning rag once more over the handlebars of the motorcycle and tossed it aside. “Yes?”

Amon held out his arms. A long thin pole of rested in his palms. “I decided that perhaps something more... forgiving, would be fitting for you to practice with.”

I sighed as I crossed the length of the garage. Amon was still as stone, offering the weapon. I delicately picked it up with one hand, testing the weight and balance. 

“Over six feet long, and carved from red oak,” he said as I eyed the wood grain and natural grooves. “The length should be quite suiting for you.”

I stood the bo staff on one end, measuring its height to my own. The top of it barely peaked above my scalp.

“It’s a weapon of momentum and grace. Try to keep that in mind as you practice,” Amon advised. 

I nodded and stepped over to the sagging, ill-proportioned training dummy. 

My strikes began with pokes and prods against the sacked hay. Then I slapped the broader segments of the pole against the scarecrow, slowly working in swifter, more aggressive attacks. My feet shifted and turned in rhythm with my strikes. It reminded me of dancing. The energy carried me further. I hit harder as I envisioned my target: a vicious metal bending officer lashing out with his spools of whips. My teeth were bared, and my hair dampened with sweat. I pictured the jolting bags of hay as his flimsy limbs. I broke his arms, shattered his knees, and then moved in for the kill. I spun around, swinging with both hands clamped around my weapon. 

There was a very sobering crack as the staff pounded against an exposed segment of wood between the puppet’s head and torso The pole snapped in my hands, exposing two splintered ends. One half gyrated through the air like a dismembered propeller and slid across the smooth floor. It stopped just short at the toe of Amon’s boot.

I surveyed the broken staff in my hand, noting the immaculately carved solid oak and ideal length; it was just my height. And then I looked at the other half lying several feet away. My sight trailed up Amon’s body until I collided with those static yellow eyes. He no doubt read my helpless expression like a bright stop sign.

“Don’t lead me to believe that I’ve been wrong, Lieutenant,” he said.

My breathing was catching up with me. It was too difficult to keep looking at him. My eyes darted around the garage at nothing in particular.

“I have trusted you,” he continued. “I relieved you of your curse because I believe in you, but it appears to me that I may be misplacing my faith. Are you only half of a person now, Lieutenant? Are you incomplete without your bending?”

My mouth was agape and panting, like merely hearing those words was exhausting me. Weakening me.

Amon idly kicked the other half of the staff towards me. It drifted over the garage floor and softly tapped one of my sandals.

“If a broken stick is all takes to disrupt your spirit, then I will find a more sturdy Lieutenant to command my army. I need someone who will keep fighting, even if only with broken sticks.”

My head dropped forward. I felt weightless as my lethargic eyes watched the gray shades of the floor melt into a tiring haze. I shut my eyelids and sluggishly bent over to pick up the other half of the staff. My limbs felt like they were being drunkenly controlled via marionette strings, like I had been momentarily dreaming and was forced awake. 

“A lost weapon is no casualty. But if you give up, you are failing yourself, and you are failing me.”

I clenched the two severed halves of the bo staff, one in each hand, and once again launched an assault at the metal bender.

\---

There were three thudding rasps at my bedroom door.

“Come in,” I yelled, not looking up from my workbench. My pen scratched down another recipe ingredient onto the parchment.

The door creaked open and then clicked shut after a few nearing footsteps.

“Thank you for the permission.”

I swiveled in my chair around towards the door with widened eyes. “Oh! Amon, I didn’t realize-”

“It’s late,” he said. His mask glanced around the small room, inspecting what few bits of personality it had. He paused at my bookshelf, no doubt reading the spines of the few titles I owned. I hadn’t noticed until then that he had never been inside my quarters. “You should be asleep by now.”

“I apologize, Amon, I was-” My eyes were reeled in by the large, shimmering silver container at his side. The corners were rounded and smooth. “What is that?” I asked, pointing at the case.

In one fluid motion, Amon swung the heavy case onto his other hand and gently placed it in my lap. “Open it,” he ordered.

I cocked an eyebrow at him curiously, and then flicked open the metal bindings. My heart pounded as I opened the top half of the container; Amon had never _given_ anything to me before.

Tucked tightly inside were two gold-plated kali sticks, holstered onto a flat mount. A pair of tubes ran from the mount into a bronze cylinder drum. I slowly lifted one of the batons by its dark embroidered handle. The stainless metal gleamed in the lamp light.

Amon leaned in slightly as I firmed my grip around the cushioned hilt. “Be caref-”

An explosion of blue light blinded me. I scampered back into my chair, nearly tipping it over while pushing the weapon case from my lap to the floor. The light and sizzling current from the fallen kali stick faded. I arched my brow accusingly at Amon.

“The electrical discharge is pressure sensitive,” he explained. “I thought it appropriate given your... previous experience.”

My eyes fell to the exposed weapon at my feet. “You had this made for me?”

“It’s the first of its kind. No other weapon like it exists.”

I leaned forward to pick the baton back up from the floor and gave the handle a few light squeezes. I winced reflexively as the stick illuminated like a bright blue lantern.

“It is your power, Lieutenant. Do not cower before it.”

I took a deep breath and squeezed the hilt again, glaring into the brilliant light. Bolts of electricity flashed and danced just above my hand. I didn’t flinch or blink.

“One sufficiently charged strike should render any one of our foes incapacitated. Further aggression could easily lead to more permanent results.”

I eased up on the baton handle, entranced by dimming the blue light. Amon’s mask now appeared as a waving azure from beyond my distorted vision. “Thank you,” I said, offering him a slight bow from my seat.

"Remember, Lieutenant. These are only meant to empower, not define you.” He paused in the doorway and turned back towards me. “That said, do not break them. They were exceptionally expensive to produce."


End file.
